Imagine you are 21 years old. You have played eight first-class matches in your life. You did not even have a passport a week ago. Then you land in England. Your first over averages 89.7mph. Every single delivery of that over is quicker than every other ball any Pakistan bowler has sent down on this entire tour. You trap the greatest Test batter England has produced before you have conceded a single run in Test cricket. You finish with four wickets. Then you come back with the bat, score 81 from the bottom of the order in a day, and end up as the second-highest run scorer of the side. You break the record for the most sixes by a debutant in Test history. And you play an innings that wakes up an entire ground, and an entire country, in the space of a couple of hours. That is where you tell the world that Pakistan has never had a shortage of talent. Only a shortage of people willing to look for it. What a story. What an absolute beauty of a Test cricket session.

You would be a hypocrite if you don't applaud Shadab for today's innings. This is the kind of innings even specialist batters dream of playing in their lives. He played the innings of his life. Today is not about stats. Today we will not discuss anything else. Today we will only discuss heart. And Shadab Khan has won our hearts. Thank you, Shadab Khan, for treating us to one of the most extraordinary ODI matches in recent times.

shadab my man. today is not about stats and anything today is all about heart.

The crowd in Lahore for today's game is absolutely electric. And doing it on a pink day, with Pakistan in pink kits against England for breast cancer awareness, makes it look even better. The colour, the noise, the full stands, it really gives the game a theatrical feel. So happy that Pakistan have finally revived the joy of ODI cricket with quality teams like England and Sri Lanka, and quality performances so far. That's what makes this tri-series feel real. Hopefully we keep hosting more top teams, so our fans keep turning up and have something to cherish.

Pakistani fans are sometimes being too harsh on Shaheen, and that includes his ODI performances. I agree his T20 and Test form is not there right now. He's also not the same bowler he used to be, and that's fair to say. But where exactly has he gone wrong in the ODI format? Because in ODIs, he's been pretty reliable. In fact, you could argue ODIs are now his strongest format. He's taken his ODI wickets at an average of around 24, and he got to 150 in fewer than 80 matches. That's not a bowler in decline in this format actually looks like. And this series has been superb for him, both as captain and as bowler. He's leading from the front and still taking wickets. Now 150 ODI wickets for him. Hopefully his form holds.

So Shaheen did not hand the ball to Arafat Minhas until the 25th over, because two left-handers, Curran and Duckett, were batting, and he felt bringing on a left-arm spinner against them was a bad idea. The theory is that the ball turns into a left-hander, so it's easier for them to hit. But I don't buy this argument that you should never try SLA against left-handers. We have seen this before. Remember the 2022 Asia Cup final, when Nawaz bowled just one over, for three runs, and never got to complete his quota because Rajapaksa was a left-hander? Meanwhile Rajapaksa took the game away from us. And it turned out Nawaz actually had not badrecord against him, if I'm correct. Also, if you keep conditioning your bowlers this way, it becomes a weakness. They start believing they can only bowl to one type of batter. Sometimes it's just oversmartness. I mean, you have to at least try the guy for an over or two and judge whether it's working or not. And if things are not going in your favour, then maybe you stick with your decision. But at least you will know.

Ngl Pink gercy looks really awesome. Pookiestan🩷

Australia struggling to find an opener for next test. how about Scott boland!

Sometimes you feel that slow left-arm spin in T20 cricket is a very tricky proposition, unless you come across someone like Mitchell Santner. What a shrewd bowler he really is. It's not easy to survive so long in this role, but Santner has managed it. The special thing about him, for me, is his knack for watching the batter's feet. There is something in his action, a slight delay, that lets him watch the feet of the batter. Clever changes of pace and crease usage add class to his game. Even when he is being hit hard, Santner puts on his thinking cap.

You can imagine the standard of Indian cricketing talent: despite producing a string of match-winning performances, this guy Tilak Varma still gets trolled whenever his approach occasionally misfires. It is not always his mistake that he sometimes has to start a little slowly, because he has to gauge the conditions. He is not an anchor or a traditional slow scorer, but he sometimes has to do it, because this is his approach and it has borne fruit for him. So I think fans are sometimes very harsh. Maybe they need to accept it.

I don't know why some franchises and some fans dismiss Glenn Phillips as just a lower-order power hitter. He's definitely a far more versatile T20 batter, who can bat in any position and score you quick runs. Today, the way he paced that innings was masterful. And then you add his character: he roars, he injects entertainment into the game, and he is also probably the most athletic guy out there. The way he dived to beat that run-out was remarkable. Incredible guy. Such a character he is.

My respect for KG Rabada has soared over the last few years. I think he is one of the greatest bowlers of our generation, and we do respect him, but our respect should climb even higher. On commentary, while Carey, Cummins and Starc were batting, I heard the commentators insisting again and again that South Africa needed Rabada to force a breakthrough. Ntini was pleading: we need Rabada to make the breakthrough, please go to Rabada. And Rabada is summoned. The very first delivery he bowls is an absolute rocket. Two or three deliveries later, he castles Mitchell Starc. What a decisive bowler. KG Rabada in South Africa is just too good. Badshah of these tracks.

I think we are able to witness day 5 because of the wall established by Travis head to stop South Africa sending Australia back to the hotel a bit early yesterday. It is not easy to play a mammoth innings like that when the chips are down, unless you are Travis Head and you know exactly how to counter the pressure. Until yesterday, the conversation was about Travis Head having a problem as a Test opener. Today, he has once again put a different question on the table: is he the ultimate clutch player or not? And just like that, the conversation has shifted. This guy has loads of self-belief. Anything in his range, he will pick it 100 times out of 100. He will not hold back, and he will never forget to smash anything in his arc. That is the Travis Head method, and on days like today it is almost impossible to stop.

I remember when asked during the World Cup about the criticism he faced in the past, Sanju replied: "When the World Cup is happening in the country, there is a lot of outside noise. I cut it off and focused on cricket... I shut down my phone. I was not on social media. That really helped me focus in the right direction." I don't exactly remember, but he also said something like, instead of calling out his critics, he embraced his shortcomings and worked more on his game. Many players would have crumbled under that noise. Sanju is a naturally gifted batter who looks very commanding on his day, but there is always a mental barrier a cricketer has to conquer in his career.

On the last ball, Glenn Phillips switched to a left-hander's stance and hit Bhuvneshwar Kumar for four, because he sensed Bhuvi had already read his strengths. So he did something extraordinary. That is exactly the point of Glenn Phillips. Such a character and team man he's. Bringing entertainment in whatever way possible. I would love to have this kind of man in my team. And it's not the first time he has pulled off something this. We all remember him wearing glasses against Jofra Archer in England. Then there are all the little stunning things he does, the kind that make you stop and rewind.He would always play for the team, always act as a team man, and always make sure the team is in a respectable position. The tricks never come at the team's expense. Just a perfect guy.

During the break, Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock were saying that Rabada man, slightly calm down man, it's okay, your team is in a pretty commanding position. They were mentioning that Rabada was visibly frustrated as he wasn't getting favourable rewards considering his efforts. Now imagine that. The man was clocking over 150, bowling absolute rockets of deliveries, and yet being furious with himself. There's a reason why Rabada is where he is. Indomitable character. As Dale Steyn once said, when KG Rabada gives a f***, we win. SA with Rabada is a different unit altogether.

Travis Head averages 51.86 in Australia and 31.62 away from it. Eleven of Travis Head's twelve Test centuries have been made in Australia. The twelfth came at The Oval, a neutral ground, in a one-off final. He has never scored a Test hundred in an opposition's own country. This doesn't mean that it does make him a home-track merchant. But away numbers demand improvement. And the blame does not sit entirely with him. For most of his career he batted in the middle order. At the point he was already a proven force in Test cricket, Australia handed him a different challenge as an opener. It's a different ball game. What actually changed is that Australia gave him a brand new problem while the old one was still sitting there unsolved.

Although Shaheen Shah Afridi is still not fully back to his best, and still not bowling at his peak, his captaincy looked markedly sharper in this series. Yesterday, when he brought the pace bowlers again after 25 overs, it was a masterclass. The decision to bring on both Haris and Naseem, and the fact that they struck, was a shrewd one, which both the commentators and everyone on social media must have acknowledged. I really hope he returns to his best, so that our ODI unit under him becomes even more complete for the ODI World Cup.

Simon Harmer scoring runs isn't really surprising. His batting is backed by real pedigree. More than 7,000 first-class runs overall, including roughly 3,000 for Essex. His peak at domestic level came in 2018 against Surrey, where he made a magnificent 102 not out and showed he was capable of carrying an innings from lower down. And then there is also an inning of his featuring clean hitting. Finding himself on strike for the final six balls of an Essex innings, Harmer went after it hard.

This isn't only Temba Bavuma's supreme hundred of his career, this is also arguably one of SA's greatest skipper hundreds ever. Sometimes you don't need luck, you need Temba. Yep, marched in at 12 for 2, in savage batting conditions. Marched in under suffocating pressure from the hat-trick ball as well and grafted on three separate days to a total worth a declaration. South Africa were 97 for 5 at the end of day two, but Temba was there still. They were 110 for 6 today, but Temba was still there. SA ended with 425. Monumental innings. It's like he bats even better when his team is in crisis. Absolutely goated stuff. Yeah, he has that dawg in him. Epitome of resilience. All bow before Lord Bavuma!